1J1 



ODEL'JL SHEPARD 




Class 

Book 

GopiglitE?- 



COPXRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



A LONELY FLUTE 



A LONELY FLUTE 



BY 



ODELL SHEPARD 
N 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

The Riverside Press Cambridge 
1917 



Li. 



COPYRIGHT, I917, BY ODELL SHEPARD 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published April iqij 



/.zjt 

APR 16 1317 
©CI.A457984 



TO 



And now '/ nvas like all instruments. 
Novo like a lonely flute ; 
And nonjo it is an angeVs song 
That makes the Heavens be mute. 

Coleridge. 



CONTENTS 

PROEM 3 

LAUS MARINE 5 

RECOLLECTION 7 

NIGHTFALL 9 

A BALLAD OF LOVE AND DEATH II 

BIRDS OF PASSAGE 1 5 

WASTE 1 6 

THE WATCHER IN THE SKY 22 

HOUSEMATES 23 

POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 24 

THE HIDDEN WEAVER 25 

V ANITAS 27 

SPENSER'S "FAERIE QUEENE" 30 

MORNING ROAD SONG 33 

EVENING ROAD SONG 34 

WINDY MORNING 35 

THE GRAVE OF THOREAU 37 



CONTENTS 

EARTH-BORN 39 

"WHENCE COMETH MY HELP " 4 1 

UNITY 44 

VISTAS 46 

A NUN 48 

LOVE AMONG THE CLOVER 49 

CERTAIN AMERICAN POETS 5 1 

THE SINGER'S QUEST 52 

DEAD MAGDALEN 54 

THE ADVENTURER 55 

THE GOLDFINCH 57 

ORIOLES 59 

BY A MOUNTAIN STREAM 6 1 

APRIL 63 

A CHAPEL BY THE SEA 64 

EPHEMEROS 66 

WANDERLUST 68 

THE IDEAL 70 

THE FIRST CHRISTIAN 7 1 



A LONELY FLUTE 



A LONELY FLUTE 

PROEM 

Beyond the pearly portal, 

Beyond the last dim star, 
Pale, perfect, and immortal, 

The eternal visions are, 
That never any rapture 

Of sorrow or of mirth 
Of any song shall capture 

To dwell with men on earth. 

Many a strange and tragic 

Old sorrow still is mute 
And melodies of magic 

Still slumber in the flute, 
Many a mighty vision 

Has caught my yearning eye 
And swept with calm derision 

In robes of splendor by. 
3 



PROEM 

The rushing susurration 

Of some eternal wing 
Beats mighty variation 

Through all the song I sing ; 
The vague, deep-mouthed commotion 

From its ancestral home 
Booms like the shout of ocean 

Across the crumbling foam ; 
And these low lyric whispers 

Make answer wistfully 
As sea-shells . . . dreaming lispers 

Beside the eternal sea. 



LAUS MARINE 

There is a name like some deep melody 

Hallowed by sundown, delicate as the plash 

Of lonely waves on solitary lakes 

And rounded as the sudden-bursting bloom 

Of bold, deep-throated notes in a midnight cloud 

When shadowy belfries far away roll out 

Across the dark their avalanche of sound. 

It is a wild voice lost in the wail of the wind ; 
The silvery-twinkling plectrum of the rain 
Plays in the poplar tree no other tune 
And pines intone it softly as a prayer 
In leafy litanies. 

The name is raised 
Even to God's ear from ancient arches dim 
With caverned twilight and dull altar smoke 
Where tapers weave athwart the azure haze 
Innumerable pageantries of dusk. 

Low-voiced and soft-eyed women must they live 
Who bear that holy name. And now for one 
5 



LAUS MARI.E 

Time has no other honor than to be 
The meaning of an unremembered rhyme, 
The breath of a forgotten singer's song. 

{October, 1903) 



RECOLLECTION 

I must forget awhile the mellow flutes 
And all the lyric wizardry of strings ; 

The fragile clarinet, 
Tremulous over meadows rich with dawn, 

Must knock against my vagrant heart 

And throb and cry no more. 

For I am shaken by the loveliness 

And lights and laughter and beguiling song 

Of all this siren world ; 
The regal beauty of women, round on round, 

The swift, lithe slenderness of girls, 

And children's loyal eyes, 

Hill rivers and the lilac fringe of seas 
Lazily plunging, glow of city nights 

And faces in the glow — 
These things have stolen my heart away, I lie 

Parcelled abroad in sound and hue, 

Dispersed through all I love. 
7 



RECOLLECTION 

I must go far away to a still place 

And draw the shadows down across my eyes 

And wait and listen there 
For wings vibrating from beyond the stars, 

Wide-ranging, swiftly winnowing wings 

Bearing me back mine own. 

So soon, now, I shall lie deep hidden away 
From sound or sight, with hearing strangely dull 

And heavy-lidded eyes, — 
'T is time, O passionate soul, for me to go 

Some far, hill-folded road apart 

And learn the ways of peace. 



NIGHTFALL 

In a crumbling glory sets 

The unhastening sun ; 
The fishers draw their shining nets; 

The day is done. 

Across the ruddy wine 

That brims the sea 
Black boats drag shoreward through the 
brine 

Dreamily, 

And dark against the glow 

Firing the west, 
By three and two the great gulls go 

Seaward to rest. 

Beneath the gradual host 

Of heaven, pale 
And glimmering, rides a dim sea-ghost, 

A large slow sail. 
9 



NIGHTFALL 

Slowly she cometh on 

Day's last faint breath, 
Drifting across the water, wan 

And gray as death. 

From what far-lying land 

Swimmeth thy keel, 
Dim ship ? And what mysterious hand 

Is at thy wheel ? 

What far-borne news for me ? 

What vast release ? 
Quiet is in my heart, and on the sea 

Peace. 

{Balboa, California') 



A BALLAD OF LOVE AND 
DEATH 

She winded on the castle horn, 
She clamored long and bold, 

For she was way-spent and forlorn 
And she was sore a-cold. 

And she stood lonely in the snow. 

Vague quiet filled the air 

From heaven's roof looked down aloof 

The stars, with steady stare. 

She heard the droning drift of snow 
And the wolf-wind on the hill. . . . 

No other sound. . . . For leagues around 
The night was very still. 

She cried aloud in sudden fright, 
"Open! Warder ho! 
Here is a pilgrim guest to-night 
Who can no farther go." 
11 



A BALLAD OF LOVE AND DEATH 

The steady beat of mailed feet 

In angry answer rang 
Along the floor. The castle door 

Gave in with iron clang 

And the warder strode into his tower 
And saw her standing there 

Weary, like a storm-tossed flower, 
And, like an angel, fair. 

" Here is no lodging for the night, 
No bread and wine for thee, 
No ingle bright, no warm firelight, 
No cheerful company. 

" Here is no inn nor any kin 
Of thine to harbor guest, 
Nor thee to house will any rouse 
Out of his ancient rest." 

Unearthly, dark, nocturnal things 
With faint and furtive stir 

Hovered on feather-muffled wings 
Round the fair face of her 
12 



A BALLAD OF LOVE AND DEATH 

As she made answer wearily : 
" Ah ! open now the gate. 
Though I was fleet with willing feet, 
I have come very late. 

" Yea, though I came through flood and flame, 
Through tempest, flood, and fire, 
And left the wind to trail behind 
The wings of my desire, 

" And though I prayed the stars for aid 
And seas for wind and tide, 
And though God gave me goodly pave 
And ran, Himself, beside . . . 

" Aye, though my feet have been thus fleet, 
Unto one heart, I know, 
Whose sleep is still beneath the hill, 
My coming has been slow." 

And he bent gently down above, 
A soft light in his eye . . . 
" Is not the holy name of Love 
The name men call thee by? 
13 



A BALLAD OF LOVE AND DEATH 

" Ah, Love, I know thee, for thy face 
Is other-worldly fair; 
A great light of some heavenly place 
Is on thy shining hair. 

M But thou, Love, who canst tread the stars, 
Whose seat is by God's throne, 
Why wilt thou bend thee to the dust 
And walk the dark alone ? 

u Thy ways are not our mortal ways. 
Hast thou nought else to do 
Than wander with thy dream-lit face 
Our glimmering darkness through ? " 

But Love made answer, and her voice 

Was as God's voice to him; 
As tall and fair she towered there 

As heavenly seraphim . . . 

" Open the gate ! for Love shall dwell 
Even among the dead 
And in the darkest deeps of hell ! 
Open ! For God hath said ! " 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 

Dropping round and clear across the still miles, 
Ringing down the midnight's marble stair, 

A bird's cry is falling through the darkness, 
Falling from the fields of upper air. 

Through the rainy fragrance of the April night 

Slow it falls, circling in the fall, 
And all the sheeted lake of sleeping silences 

Is troubled by the solitary call. 

Each human heart awake knows the loneliness 

Of that strange voice clear and far, 
That lost voice searching through the midnight, 

That lonely star calling to a star. 

Old memories are thronging through the dark- 
ness . . . 

Slow tears are blinding sleepless eyes . . . 
O lonely hearts remembering in the midnight ! 

O dark and empty skies ! 



15 



WASTE 

Reluctant, groping fog crept gray and cold 
Up from the fields where now the guns were still; 
Far off the thundering surge of battle rolled 
And darkness brooded on the quiet hill; 
Clearly, across the listening night, the shrill 
And rhythmic cry of a lonely cricket fell 
On ears long deafened by the scream of shot and 
shell. 

And there were two who listened wistfully 
To that glad voice, that sad last voice of all, 
Who on the morrow after reveille 
Would make no answer to the muster call ; 
Others would eat their mess, others would fall 
When the lines formed again into their places, 
And soon their marching comrades would forget 
their faces. 

One moaned a little and the other turned 
Painfully sidewise, peering up the bare 
16 



WASTE 

Shell-furrowed slope. Then, while his deep wound 

burned, 
He crawled, slow inch by weary inch, to where 
The boy lay, — young, he thought, and strangely 

fair. 
" You see, I came," he said. " It was a wrench. 
I thought I 'd die. Let 's have a light here. What ! 

You 're French ! 

a No matter ... we '11 be going pretty soon . . . 
Dying 's a lonesome business at the best, 
And when there 's nothing but a ghastly moon 
And fog for company, I lose my zest. 
There 's a girl somewhere . . . well . . . you know 

the rest. 
I 'm glad I came. It 's hand in hand now, brother. 
I think I laid you here. I wish 't had been an- 
other. 

" I never meant it, and you did n't mean 
For me this ugly gash along my side. 
Something has pushed us on. Our slate is clean. 
And long and long after we two have died 
Some learnedest of doctors will decide 
17 



WASTE 

What thing it was. But we ... we '11 never know* 
Our business now 's to help make next year's 
harvest grow. 

" You Ve been at school ? College de France ! You 
know 
Next year I should have heard your Bergson 

there, — 
Greatest since Hegel. Think of Haeckel, though, 
At my own Jena ! Mighty men they were. 
Not mighty enough for what they had to bear. 
They read and wrote and taught, but you and I, 
How have we profited at last ? Well, here we lie. 

" If I had known you by the silver Rhine, 
That dreamy country where I had my birth, 
The land of golden corn and golden wine 
And surely, I think, the world's most lovely 

earth, — 
I should have loved you, brother, and known your 

worth. 
But you were born beside the racing Rhone. 
Ah, yes, that made the difference. That thing 

alone. 

18 



WASTE 

"We might have fronted this world's stormy 

weather 
Hand clasped in hand and seeing eye to eye. 
What was there we could not have done together ? 
Who dares to say we should have feared to die, 
Shoulder to shoulder standing, you and I ? 
But now you are slain by me, your unknown 

friend. 
I die by your unknowing hand. This . . . this is 

the end ! 

u And all the love that might have been is blown 
Far off like clouds that fade across the blue ; 
The game is over and the night shuts down, 
Blotting the little dreams of me and you 
And all our hope of all we longed to do. 
But courage, comrade ! It 's not hard to die. 
It's not so lonely now. If only we know why!" 

The fog-damp folded closer round the hill 
And stillness deepened, but the cricket's song 
Tore at the heavy hem of silence still — 
One small voice left of love in a world of 
wrong. 

19 



WASTE 

A few dim stars looked down. The yelling throng 
Of guns had passed beyond the mountain's brow 
When once again he spoke, but slowly, faintlier now. 

"Something discovered that it didn't need us — 
Me in the Fatherland and you in France. 
We were less worth than what it took to feed us, 
And so life gave us only a little glance. 
It 's true to say we never had a chance. 
It 's like this fog, around, above, below. 
Reach out your hand to me. Good-night. We '11 
never know." 

i 

And then they lay so still they seemed asleep, 
For death was near and they had little pain. 
The midnight did not hear them moan or weep 
For life and love and gladness lost in vain 
And faces they would never see again, — 
Old friends, old lovers. All seemed at a distance. 
The minutes crept and crept. They made no strong 
resistance. 

They only lay and looked up at the stars, 
Feeling they had not known how fair they were. 
20 



WASTE 

I think their hearts were far from those loud wars 
As they lay listening to the cricket's chirr 
Until it faded to a drowsy blur, 
Dwindled, and died, lost in the distant roar 
Of waves that plunged and broke on some eternal 
shore. 



THE WATCHER IN THE SKY 

She has grown pale and spectral with our wounds 

And she is worn with memories of woe 

Older than Karnak. Multitudinous feet 

Of all the phantom armies of the world 

Resounding down the hollow halls of time, 

Have kept their far-off rumor in her ear. 

For she was old when Nineveh and Tyre 

And Baalbec of the waste went down in blood ; 

Pompey and Tamburlaine and Genghis Khan 

Are dreams of only yesternight to her. 

And still she keeps, chained to a loathsome thing, 

Her straining, distant paces up and down 

The vaulted cell, but wistful of an end 

When all our swarm of shuddering life shall drop 

Like some dead cooling cinder down the void, 

Leaving her clean, in blessed barrenness. 

(August, 1 91 4) 



22 



HOUSEMATES 

This little flickering planet 
Is such a lonely spark 

Among the million mighty fires 
That blaze in the outer dark, 

The homeless waste about us 
Leaves such a narrow span 

To this dim lodging for a night, 
This bivouac of man, 

That all the heavens wonder 

In all their alien stars 
To see us wreck our fellowship 

In mad fraternal wars. 



23 



POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE 

With a shout of trumpets and roll of drums, 
Down the road the music comes 
And all my heart leaps up to greet 
The steady tread of the marching feet. 

Blare of bugle and shriek of fife . . . 
This is the triumphing wine of life ! 
My senses reel and my glad heart sings, 
My spirit soars on jubilant wings. 

Fluttering banners and gonfalons 
Cover with beauty the murderous guns; 
'T is sweet to live, 't were great to die 
With this vast music marching by. 

For all my heart leaps up to greet 
The steady tread of the marching feet 
When down the road the music comes 
With a shout of trumpets and roll of drums. 



24 



THE HIDDEN WEAVER 

There where he sits in the cold, in the gloom, 
Of his far-away place by his thundering loom, 
He weaves on the shuttles of day and of night 
The shades of our sorrow and shapes of delight. 
He has wrought him a glimmering garment to fling 
Over the sweet swift limbs of the Spring, 
He has woven a fabric of wonder to be 
For a blue and a billowy robe to the sea, 
He has fashioned in sombre funereal dyes 
A tissue of gold for the midnight skies. 

But sudden the woof turns all to red. 

Has he lost his craft ? Has he snapped his thread ? 

Sudden the web all sanguine runs. 

Does he hear the yell of the thirsting guns ? 

While the scarlet crimes and the crimson sins 

Grow from the dizzying outs and ins 

Of the shuttle that spins, does he see it and feel ? 

Or is he the slave of a tyrannous wheel ? 

Inscrutable faces, mysterious eyes, 
Are watching him out of the drifting skies; 
25 



THE HIDDEN WEAVER 

Exiles of chaos crowd through the gloom 

Of the uttermost cold to that thundering room 

And whisper and peer through the dusk to mark 

What thing he is weaving there in the dark. 

Will he leave the loom that he won from them 

And rend his fabric from hem to hem ? 

Is he weaving with daring and skill sublime 

A wonderful winding-sheet for time ? 

Ah, but he sits in a darkling place, 

Hiding his hands, hiding his face, 

Hiding his art behind the shine 

Of the web that he weaves so long and fine. 

Loudly the great wheel hums and rings 

And we hear not even the song that he sings. 

Over the whirr of the shuttles and all 

The roar and the rush, does he hear when we call ? 

Only the colors that grow and glow 

Swift as the hurrying shuttles go, 

Only the figures vivid or dim 

That flow from the hastening hands of him, 

Only the fugitive shapes are we, 

Wrought in the web of eternity. 



VANITAS 

Three queens of old in Yemen 

Beside forgotten streams, 
Three tall and stately women, 

Dreamt three great stately dreams 
Of love and power and pleasure and conquering 
quinqueremes. 

They dreamt of love that squandered 

All Egypt for a kiss, 
They dreamt of fame and pondered 
On proud Persepolis, 
But most they yearned for the wild delights of pale 
Semiramis. 

They had for lords and lovers 

Dark kings of Araby, 
Corsairs and wild sea-rovers 
From many an alien lea, — 
Black-bearded men who loved and fought and won 
them cruelly. 

27 



VANITAS 

They reared a dreamlike palace 

Stately and white and tall 
As a lily's ivory chalice 
Where every echoing hall 
Was rumorous with rustling leaves and plashing 
water's fall. 

There to the tinkling zither 

And passionate guitars 
They footed hence and hither 
Beneath the breathless stars, 
From bare round breast and shoulder waved their 
glimmering cymars. 

Theirs was an empire's treasure 

Of gems and rich attire, 
Love had they beyond measure 
And wine that burnt like fire; 
Each stately queen in Yemen found verily her de- 
sire. 

But beauty waned and smouldered, 
Love languished into lust, 
28 



VANITAS 

The centuries have mouldered 
Their raven hair to rust, 
The desert sand is over them, their darkling eyes 
are dust. 

Their bosoms' pride is sunken 

Beneath the purple pall, 
Their smooth round limbs are shrunken, 
Through clasp and anklet crawl 
Lithe little snakes, upon their tombs lean lizards 
twitch and sprawl. 



SPENSER'S "FAERIE QUEENE" 

Like some clear well of water in the waste, 
Some magic well beside the weary miles, 
This beauty is. I turn aside and taste 
The cool Lethean drink. Suddenly smiles 
A leafy world upon me, — peristyles 
Of flickering shade ! The hush is only stirred 
Where silver runlets brighten down the aisles, 
From pool to pool rehearsing one low word 
Answered at drowsy intervals by a lonely bird. 

Along the rustling arches and through vast 
Dim caverns of green solitude are rolled 
The wintry leaves of all the withered past, 
One confraternity of common mould. 
From summers perished, autumn's tarnished gold 
Long blown to dust in many a fallen glade 
Is reared this Tumorous temple million-boled, 
This shrine of peace, this whispering colonnade 
Trembling from court to court with restless sun 
and shade. 

30 



SPENSER S FAERIE QUEENE 

And here a while may weary Fancy turn 
And loiter by the rote of guttural streams. 
Brushing the skirts of silence, the stirred fern 
Breathes softly u hush" and "hush" — a sound 

that seems 
Only the fluttering sigh of deepest dreams. 
Here comes no sound or sight of fevered things . . . 
No sight or sound. Green-gold the daylight 

beams, 
And deep in the heart of dusk a far bird sings 
Faint as the feathered beat of her own wavering 

wings. 



Calm singer in the chambers of the dawn, 
Our hearts are weary singing in the heat 
When all thy dewy matin hopes are gone 
And all thy raptures, prophesyings sweet, 
And fair, false dreams are flying in defeat. 
O thou, the poet's poet, from thy sky . 
Of ancient morning look thou down and greet 
Thy brothers of the noon with gentle eye. 
Lift them from out the dust. Forlorn and low they 
lie! 

31 



SPENSER S FAERIE QUEENE 

Heart-easing poet, sing to us like bells 
Across wide waters paven by the stains 
Of sunset ; like a vagrant breeze that swells 
And rises lingering, fails and grows and wanes 
Along a listening wood ; like April rains 
In which the anemones of dream are born. 
And though you cannot save us from the pains 
Of life, — the heat, the insensate noise, the scorn, — 
Here may we find our rose, forget a while the 
thorn. 



MORNING ROAD SONG 

Let me have my fill of the wide blue air 
And the emerald cup of the sea 

And a wandering road blown bright and bare 
And it is enough for me. 

The love of a man is a goodly thing 
And the love of a woman is true, 

But give me a rollicking song to sing 
And a love that is always new. 

For I am a rover and cannot stay 

And blithe at heart am I 
When free and afoot on a winding way 

Beneath the great blue sky. 



33 



EVENING ROAD SONG 

It 's a long road and a steep road 

And a weary road to climb. 
The air bites chill on the windy hill. 

At home it is firelight time. 

The sunset pales . . . along the vales 

The cottage candles shine 
And twinkle through the early dew. 

Thank God that one is mine! 

And dark and late she '11 watch and wait 

Beyond the last long mile 
For the weary beat of homing feet 

With her wise and patient smile. 



34 



WINDY MORNING 

Dawn with a jubilant shout 

Leaps on the shivering sea 
And puffs the last pale planet out 
And scatters the flame-bright clouds about 

Like the leaves of a frost-bitten tree. 



Does a gold seed split the rosy husk ? 
Nay, a sword ... a shield ... a spear ! 
The kindler of all fires that burn 
Deep in the day's cerulean urn 
Rides up across the clear 
And tramples down the cowering dusk 
Like a strong-browed charioteer. 

Blow out and far away 

The dim, the dull, the dun ; 
Prosper the crimson, blight the gray, 
And blow us clean of yesterday, 

Stern morning fair begun, 
35 



WINDY MORNING 

Till the earth is an opal bathed in dew, 
Flashing with emerald, gold, and blue, 
Held where the skies wash through and 
through 
High up against the sun. 

(Catalina Island, 191 3) 



THE GRAVE OF THOREAU 

Brown earth, blue sky, and solitude, — 

Three things he loved, three things he wooed 

Lifelong ; and now no rhyme can tell 

How ultimately all is well 

With his wild heart that worshipped God's 

Epiphany in crumbling sods 

And like an oak brought all its worth 

Back to the kindly mother earth. 

But something starry, something bold, 
Eludes the clutch of dark and mould, — 
Something that will not wholly die 
Out of the old familiar sky. 
No spell in all the lore of graves 
Can still the plash of Walden waves 
Or wash away the azure stain 
Of Concord skies from heart and brain. 
Clear psalteries and faint citoles 
Only recall the orioles 
Fluting reveille to the morn 
Across the acres of the corn 
37 



THE GRAVE OF THOREAU 

He wanders somewhere lonely still 
Along a solitary hill 
And sits by ever lonelier fires 
Remote from heaven's bright ramp ires, 
A hermit in the blue Beyond 
Beside some dim celestial pond 
With beans to hoe and wood to hew 
And halcyon days to loiter through 
And angel visitors, no doubt, 
Who shut the air and sunlight out. 
But he who scoffed at human ways 
And, finding us unworthy of praise. 
Sang misanthropic paeans to 
The muskrat and the feverfew, 
Will droop those archangelic wings 
With praise of how we manage things, 
Prefer his Walden tupelo 
To even the Tree of Life, and grow 
A little wistful looking down 
Across the fields of Concord town. 



EARTH-BORN 

No lapidary's heaven, no brazier's hell for me, 
For I am made of dust and dew and stream and 

plant and tree; 
I 'm close akin to boulders, I am cousin to the mud, 
And all the winds of all the skies make music in 

my blood. 

I want a brook and pine trees, I want a storm to 

blow 
Loud-lunged across the looming hills with rain and 

sleet and snow ; 
Don't put me off with diadems and thrones of 

chrysoprase, — 
I want the winds of northern nights and wild March 

days. 

My blood runs red with sunset, my body is white 
with rain, 

And on my heart auroral skies have set their scar- 
let stain, 

39 



EARTH-BORN 

My thoughts are green with spring time, among 

the meadow rue 
I think my very soul is growing green and gold 

and blue. 

What will be left, I wonder, when Death has 

washed me clean 
Of dust and dew and sundown and April's virgin 

green ? 
If there 's enough to make a ghost, I '11 bring it 

back again 
To the little lovely earth that bore me, body, soul, 

and brain. 



"WHENCE COMETH MY HELP" 

Let me sleep among the shadows of the mountains 
when I die, 
In the murmur of the pines and sliding streams, 
Where the long day loiters by 
Like a cloud across the sky 

And the moon-drenched night is musical with 
dreams. 

Lay me down within a canyon of the mountains, 
far away, 

In a valley filled with dim and rosy light, 
Where the flashing rivers play 
Out across the golden day 

And a noise of many waters brims the night. 

Let me lie where glinting rivers ramble down the 
slanted glade 
Under bending alders garrulous and cool, 
Where they gather in the shade 
To the dazzling, sheer cascade, 

Where they plunge and sleep within the pebbled 
pool. 

41 



WHENCE COMETH MY HELP 

All the wisdom, all the beauty, I have lived for 
unaware 

Came upon me by the rote of highland rills ; 
I have seen God walking there 
In the solemn soundless air 

When the morning wakened wonder in the hills. 

I am what the mountains made me of their green 
and gold and gray, 

Of the dawnlight and the moonlight and the foam. 
Mighty mothers far away, 
Ye who washed my soul in spray, 

I am coming, mother mountains, coming home. 

When I draw my dreams about me, when I leave 
the darkling plain 

Where my soul forgets to soar and learns to plod, 
I shall go back home again 
To the kingdoms of the rain, 

To the blue purlieus of heaven, nearer God. 

Where the rose of dawn blooms earlier across the 
miles of mist, 
Between the tides of sundown and moonrise, 
42 



WHENCE COMETH MY HELP 

I shall keep a lover's tryst 
With the gold and amethyst, 

With the stars for my companions in the 
skies. 



UNITY 

Where the long valley slopes away 
Five miles across the dreaming day 
A maple sends a scarlet prayer 
Into the still autumnal air, 
Three golden-smouldering hickories 
Are fanned to flame beneath the breeze 
And one great crimson oak tree fires 
The sky-line over the Concord spires. 

In worship mystically sweet 
The rimy asters at my feet 
And spiring gentian bells that burn 
Blue incense in an azure urn 
Breathe softly from the aspiring sod : 
" This is our utmost. Take it, God, — 
This chant of green, this prayer of blue. 
This is the best thy clay can do." 



O lonely heart and widowed brain 
Sick with philosophies that strain 
44 



UNITY 

Body from spirit, flesh from soul, — 
Worship with asters and be whole ; 
Live simply as still water flows 
Till soul shall border brain so close 
No blade of wit can thrust between 
And hearts are pure as grass is green; 
Pray with the maple tree and trust 
The ancient ritual of the dust. 



VISTAS 

As I walked through the rumorous streets 
Of the wind-rustled, elm-shaded city 
Where all of the houses were friends 

And the trees were all lovers of her, 
The spell of its old enchantment 
Was woven again to subdue me 
With magic of flickering shadows, 

Blown branches and leafy stir. 

Street after street, as I passed, 
Lured me and beckoned me onward 
With memories frail as the odor 

Of lilac adrift on the air. 
At the end of each breeze-blurred vista 
She seemed to be watching and waiting, 
With leaf shadows over her gown 

And sunshine gilding her hair. 

For there was a dream that the kind God 
Withheld, while granting us many — 
But surely, I think, we shall come 
Sometime, at the end, she and I, 
46 



VISTAS 

To the heaven He keeps for all tired souls, 

The quiet suburban gardens 

Where He Himself walks in the evening 

Beneath the rose-dropping sky 
And watches the balancing elm trees 
Sway in the early starshine 
When high in their murmurous arches 

The night breeze ruffles by. 



A NUN 

One glance and I had lost her in the riot 

Of tangled cries. 
She trod the clamor with a cloistral quiet 

Deep in her eyes 
As though she heard the muted music only 

That silence makes 
Among dim mountain summits and on lonely 

Deserted lakes. 

There is some broken song her heart remembers 

From long ago, 
Some love lies buried deep, some passion's embers 

Smothered in snow, 
Far voices of a joy that sought and missed her 

Fail now, and cease. . . . 
And this has given the deep eyes of God's sister 

Their dreadful peace. 



48 



LOVE AMONG THE CLOVER 

" If you dare," she said, 
And oh, her breath was clover-sweet ! 
Clover nodded over her, 
Her lips were clover red. 
Blackbirds fluted down the wind, 
The bobolinks were mad with joy, 
The wind was playing in her hair, 
And " If you dare," she said. 

Clover billowed down the wind 
Far across the happy fields, 
Clover on the breezy hills 
Leaned along the skies 
And all the nodding clover heads 
And little clouds with silver sails 
And all the heaven's dreamy blue 
Were mirrored in her eyes. 

Her laughing lips were clover-red 
When long ago I kissed her there 
49 



LOVE AMONG THE CLOVER 

And made for one swift moment all 
My heaven and earth complete. 
I Ve loved among the roses since 
And love among the lilies now, 
But love among the clover . . . 
Her breath was clover-sweet. 

wise, wise-hearted boy and girl 
Who played among the clover bloom ! 

1 think I was far wiser then 
Than now I dare to be. 

For I have lost that Eden now, 
I cannot find my Eden now, 
And even should I find it now, 
I Ve thrown away the key. 



CERTAIN AMERICAN POETS 

They cowered inert before the study fire 

While mighty winds were ranging wide and free, 

Urging their torpid fancies to aspire 

With " Euhoe ! Bacchus ! Have a cup of tea." 

They tripped demure from church to lecture-hall, 
Shunning the snare of farthingales and curls. 
Woman they thought half angel and half doll, 
The Muses' temple a boarding-school for girls. 

Quaffing Pierian draughts from Boston pump, 
They toiled to prove their homiletic art 
Could match with nasal twang and pulpit thump 
In maxims glib of meeting-house and mart. 

Serenely their ovine admirers graze. 
Apollo wears frock-coats, the Muses stays. 



51 



THE SINGER'S QUEST 

I Ve been wandering, listening for a song, 

Dreaming of a melody, all my life long . . . 

The lilting tune that God sang to rock the tides 

asleep 
And crooned above the cradled stars before they 

learned to creep. 

O, there was laughter in it and many a merry chime 

Before He had turned moralist, grown old before 
His time, 

And He was happy, trolling out His great blithe- 
hearted tune, 

Before He slung the little earth beneath the sun and 
moon. 

But I know that somewhere that song is rolling on, 
Like flutes along the midnight, like trumpets in the 

dawn; 
It throbs across the sunset and stirs the poplar tree 
And rumbles in the long low thunder of the sea. 



52 



THE SINGER S QUEST 

First-love sang me one note and heart-break taught 

me two, 
A child has told me three notes, and soon I '11 

know it through; 
And when I stand before the Throne I '11 hum it 

low and sly, 
Watching for a great light of welcome in His eye . . . 

" Put a white raiment on him and a harp into his 

hand 
And golden sandals on his feet and tell the saints to 

stand 
A little farther off unless they wish to hear the 

truth, 
For this blessed lucky sinner is going to sing about 

my youth ! " 



DEAD MAGDALEN 

Cover her over with pallid white roses, 

Her who had none but red roses to wear ; 
All that her last grim lover bestows is 

Virginal white for her bosom and hair. 
Cover the folds of the glimmering sheet 
Clear from her eyelids weary and sweet 
Down to her nevermore wayward feet. 
Then They may find her fair. 

Lovingly, tenderly, let us array her 

Fair as a bride for the way she must go, 
Leaving no lingering stain to betray her, 

Letting them see we have sullied her so. 
Over the curve of the fair young breast 
Leave we this maidenly lily to rest 
White as the snow in its snow-soft nest. 
Now They will never know. 



54 



THE ADVENTURER 

He came not in the red dawn 
Nor in the blaze of noon, 

And all the long bright highway 
Lay lonely to the moon, 

And nevermore, we know now, 
Will he come wandering down 

The breezy hollows of the hills 
That gird the quiet town. 

For he has heard a voice cry 
A starry-faint " Ahoy ! " 

Far up the wind, and followed 
Unquestioning after joy. 

But we are long forgetting 

The quiet way he went, 
With looks of love and gentle scorn 

So sweetly, subtly blent. 



55 



THE ADVENTURER 

We cannot cease to wonder, 
We who have loved him, how 

He fares along the windy ways 
His feet must travel now. 

But we must draw the curtain 
And fasten bolts and bars 

And talk here in the firelight 
Of him beneath the stars. 



THE GOLDFINCH 

Down from the sky on a sudden he drops 
Into the mullein and juniper tops, 
Flushed from his bath in the midsummer shine 
Flooding the meadowland, drunk with the wine 
Spilled from the urns of the blue, like a bold 
Sky-buccaneer in his sable and gold. 

Lightly he sways on the pendulous stem, 
Vividly restless, a fluttering gem, 
Then with a flash of bewildering wings 
Dazzles away up and down, and he sings 
Clear as a bell at each dip as he flies 
Bounding along on the wave of the skies. 

Sunlight and laughter, a winged desire, 
Motion and melody married to fire, 
Lighter than thistle- tuft borne on the wind, 
Frailer than violets, how shall we find 
Words that will match him, discover a name 
Meet for this marvel, this lyrical flame ? 
57 



THE GOLDFINCH 

How shall we fashion a rhythm to wing with him, 
Find us a wonderful music to sing with him 
Fine as his rapture is, free as the rollicking 
Song that the harlequin drops in his frolicking 
Dance through the summer sky, singing so merrily 
High in the burning blue, winging so airily ? 

(Mont Vernon, New Hampshire} 



ORIOLES 

Wings in a blur of gold 
High in the elm trees, 
Looping like tawny flame 

Through the green shadows, 
Now at an airy height 
Pausing a heart beat 
Quite at the twig's tip, 

Pendulous, bending. 

Golden against the blue, 
Gold in an azure cup, 
Golden wine bubbling 

Out of blue goblets . . . 
Cool, smooth and reedy notes 
Fly low across the noon 
While through the drowsy heat 

Drums the cicada. 

Tropical wing and song 
Bound from Bolivia . . . 
59 



ORIOLES 

All the blue Amazon 

Sings to New England. 
Flute-noted orioles, 
Flame-coated orioles, 
Gold-throated orioles, 
Spirits of summer. 



BY A MOUNTAIN STREAM 

Where the rivulet swept by a sycamore root 
With a turbulent voice and a hurrying foot, 
I bent by the water and spoke in my dream 
To the wavering, restless, unlingering stream : 
" Oh, turbulent rivulet hastening past, 
For what wonderful goal do you hope at the last 
That never you pause in the shimmering green 
Of the undulant shade where the sycamores lean 
Or rest in the moss-curtained, cool dripping halls 
Hidden under the veils of your musical falls 
Or loiter at peace by the tremulous fern — 
White wandering waters that never return ? " 

And I dreamed by the rivulet's wavering side 
That a myriad ripple of voices replied : 
" Aloft on the mountain, afar on the steep, 
A voice that we knew cried aloud in our sleep, 
' Come, hasten ye down to the vale and to me, 
Your begetter, destroyer, preserver, the Sea ! ' 
61 



BY A MOUNTAIN STREAM 

We must carry our feebleness down to the Strong, 
We must mingle us deep in the Whole, and ere 

long 
All the numberless host of the heaven shall ride 
With the pale Lady Moon on our slumbering 

tide." 

The voices swept out and away through the door 
Of the canyon, and on to the infinite shore. 

Oh, vast in thy destiny, slender of span, 
Wild rivulet, how thou art like to a man ! 

( Cold Brook, California, 1 9 1 2 ) 



APRIL 

( To Bliss Carman) 

There 's a murmur in the patient forest alleys, 
There 's an elfin echo whispering through the 
trees, 

Lonely pipes are lifted softly in the valleys . . . 
All the air is filled with waking melodies. 

From the crucibles of Erebus and Endor, 
Flame of emerald has fallen by the rills, 

And it flashes up the slope and sits in splendor 
In the glory of the beauty of the hills. 

Now my heart will yearn again to voice its wonder 
And my song must sing again between the words 

With a mutter of unutterable thunder 
And a twitter of inimitable birds. 

{April, 1903) 



63 



A CHAPEL BY THE SEA 

(To Paul Dow ling) 

There 's a mouldering mountain chapel gazing out 
across the sea 

From beneath the lisping shelter of a eucalyptus tree 

That has drawn the ancient silence from the moun- 
tain's heart and fills 

And subdues a fevered spirit with the quiet of the 
hills. 

For silvery in the morning the chimes go dropping 

down 
Across the vales of purple mist that gird the island 

town 
And golden in the evening the vesper bells again 
Call back the weary fishing folk along the leafy lane. 

I 'd like to be the father priest and call the folk to 

prayer 
Up through the winding dewy ways that climb the 

morning air, 

64 



A CHAPEL BY THE SEA 

And send them down at even-song with all the 

silent sky 
Of early starshine teaching them far deeper truth 

than I. 

I 'd like to lie at rest there beneath a mossy stone 
Above the crooning sea's low distant monotone, 
Lulled by the lisping whisper of the eucalyptus tree 
That shades my mountain chapel gazing out across 
the sea. 

{Avalon, Christmas Day, 191 3) 



EPHEMEROS 

A firefly cried across the night : 
" O lofty star, O streaming light, 
Clear eye of heaven, immortal lamp 
Set high above the dew and damp, 
Thou great high-priest to heaven's King 
And chief of all the choirs that sing 
Their golden, endless antiphons 
Of praise before the eternal thrones — 
Hear thou my prayer of worship ! Thine 
The glory, all the dimness mine. 
I am a feeble glimmering spark 
Vagrant along the lower dark." 

The star called down from heaven's roof 
With a humble heart and mild reproof : 
" The Power that made, the Breath that blew 
My fire aglow has kindled you 
With equal love and equal pain 
And equal toil of heart and brain. 



66 



EPHEMEROS 

For I am only a wandering light, 
Your elder comrade in the night. 
We are two sisters, you and I, 
And when we two burn out and die 
It will be hardly known from far 
Which was the firefly, which the star." 



WANDERLUST 

{To milard) 

The birds were beating north again with faint and 
starry cries 

Along their ancient highway that spans the mid- 
night skies, 

And out across the rush of wings my heart went 
crying too, 

Straight for the morning's windy walls and lakes of 
misted blue. 

They gave me place among them, for well they 

understood 
The magic wine of April working madness in my 

blood, 
And we were kin in thought and dream as league 

by league together 
We kept that pace of straining wings across the 

starry weather. 



68 



WANDERLUST 

The dim blue tides of Fundy, green slopes of Lab- 
rador 

Slid under us . . . our course was set for earth's re- 
motest shore ; 

But tingling through the ether and searching star by 
star 

A lonely voice went crying that drew me down 
from far. 

Farewell, farewell, my brothers! I see you far 

away 
Go drifting down the sunset across the last green 

bay, 
But I have found the haven of this lonely heart and 

wild — 
My falconer has called me — I am prisoned by a 

child. 

{Easter Day, 1916) 



THE IDEAL 

Serenely, from her mountain height sublime, 
She mocks my hopeless labor as I creep 
Each day a day's strength farther from the deep 
And nearer to her side for which I climb. 
So may she mock when for the sad last time 
I fall, my face still upward, upon sleep, 
With faithful hands still yearning up the steep 
In patient and pathetic pantomime. 

I am content, O ancient, young-eyed child 
Of love and longing. Pity not our wars 
Of frail-spun flesh, and keep thee undefiled 
By all our strife that only breaks and mars. 
But let us see from far thy footing, wild 
And wayward still against the eternal stars ! 



70 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN 

A little wandering wind went up the hill. 
It had a lonely voice as though it knew 
What it should find before it came to where 
The broken body of him that had been Christ 
Hung in the ruddy glow. A bowshot down 
The bleak rock-shouldered hill the soldiery 
Had piled a fire, and when the searching wind 
Came stronger from the distant sea and dashed 
The shadows and the gleam together, songs 
Of battle and lust were blown along the slope 
Mingled with clash of swords on cuisse and shield. 
But of the women sitting by the cross 
Even she whose life had been as gravely sweet 
And sheltered as a lily's did not flinch. 
Her face was buried in her shrouding cloak. 
And she who knew too sorrowfully well 
The cruelty and bitterness of life 
Heard not. She sat erect, her shadowy hair 
Blown back along the darkness and her eyes 
That searched the distant spaces of the night 
Splendid and glowing with an inward joy. 
71 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN 

And at the darkest hour came three or four 
From round the fire and would have driven them 

thence; 
But one who knew them, gazing in their eyes, 
Said : " Nay. It is his mother and his love, 
The scarlet Magdalena. Let them be." 
So, in the gloom beside that glimmering cross, 
Beneath the broken body of him they loved, 
They wept and watched — the lily and the rose. 

At last the deep, low voice of Magdalen, 

Toned like a distant bell, broke on the hush : 

" We are so weak ! What can poor women do ? 

So pitifully frail ! God pity us ! 

How he did pity us ! He understood . . . 

Out of his own great strength he understood 

How it might feel to be so very weak . . . 

To be a tender lily of the field, 

To be a lamb lost in the windy hills 

Far from the fold and from the shepherd's 

voice, 
To be a child with no strength, only love. 
And ah, he knew, if ever a man can know, 
What 't is to be a woman and to live, 
72 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN 

Strive how she may to out-soar and overcome, 
Tied to this too frail body of too fair earth ! 

" Oh, had I been a man to shield him then 
In his great need with loving strong right arm ! 
One of the twelve — ha ! — of that noble twelve 
That ran away, and two made mock of him 
Or else betrayed him ere they ran ? Ah no ! 
And yet, a man's strength with a woman's love . . . 
That might have served him somewhat ere the 
end." 

Then with a weary voice the mother said : 

" What can we do but only watch and weep, 

Sit with weak hands and watch while strong men 

rend 
And break and ruin, bringing all to nought 
The beauty we have nearly died to make ? 

" It is not true to say that he was strong. 
He did not claim the kingdom that was his, 
He did not even seek for wealth and power, 
He did not win a woman's love and get 
Strong children to live after him, and all 
73 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN 

That strong men strive for he passed heedless by. 

Because that he was weak I loved him so . . . 

For that and for his soft and gentle ways, 

The tender patient calling of his voice 

And that dear trick of smiling with his eyes. 

Ah no ! I have had dreams — a mother's dreams — 

But now I cannot dream them any more. 

" I sorrowed little as the happy days 

Sped by and by that still the fair-haired lad 

Who lay at first beside me in the stall, 

The cattle stall outside Jerusalem, 

Found no great throne to dazzle his mother's eye. 

He was so good a workman . . . axe and saw 

Did surely suit him better than a sword. 

I was content if only he would wed 

Some village girl of little Nazareth 

And get me children with his own slow smile, 

Deep thoughtful eyes and golden kingly brow. 

" It seems but yesterday he played among 
The shavings strewn on Joseph's work-shop floor. 
The sunlight of the morning slanted through 
The window — 't was in springtime — and across 
74 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN 

The bench where Joseph sat, and then it lay 
In golden glory on the boy's bright hair 
And on the shavings that were golden too. 
I saw him through the open door. I thought, 
4 My little king has found his golden crown.' 
But unto Joseph I said nought at all. 

" But now, ah me ! he won no woman's love, 
Nor loved one either as most men call love, 
And so he had no child and he is gone 
And I am left without him and alone." 

So by her son's pale broken body mourned 
The mother, dreaming on departed days. 
And as with one who looks into the west, 
Watching the embers of the outburned day 
Crumble and cool and slowly droop and fade, 
And will not take the darkling eastward path 
Where lies his way until the last faint glow 
Has left the sky and the early stars shine forth, 
So did her dream cling to the ruined past 
And all the joy they had in Nazareth 
Before the years of doubt and trouble came. 
Then, while loud laughter sounded up the hill 
75 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN 

Where yet that ribald crew sang o'er the wine, 
She bowed her head above her cradling arms 
And softly sang, as to herself, the songs 
Of Israel that once had served her well 
To soothe the wakeful child. 

But Magdalen 
Arose upon her feet and tossed her cloak 
Back from the midnight of her wind-blown hair 
And lifted up her eyes into the dark 
As though, beyond this circle of all our woe, 
To read a hidden meaning in the stars. 

" Aye, it is dark," she said. " The night comes 

on. 
He was the sunshine of our little day. 
The clouds unsettled softly and we saw 
Ladders of glory climbing into light 
Unspeakable, with dazzling interchange 
Of Majesties and Powers. But suddenly 
The tides of darkness whelm us round again 
And this drear dwindled earth becomes once 

more 
What it has ever been — a core of shade 
76 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN 

And steaming vapor spinning in the dark, 
A deeper clot of blackness in the void ! 

"The night comes on. 'T is hard to pierce the 

dark. 
And if to me who loved him, whom he loved — 
Though well thou sayest, c Not as most men call 

love ' — 
Far harder will it be for those who hold 
In memory no gesture of his hand, 
No haunting echo of his patient voice, 
Nor that dear trick of smiling with his eyes. 

" O ceaseless tramp of armies down the years ! 
O maddened cries of 4 Christ ' and ' Son of 

Mary ! ' 
While o'er the crying screams the hurtling 

death. . . . 
Thou gentle shepherd of the quiet fold, 
Mild man of sorrows, hast thou done this thing, 
Who earnest not to bring peace but a sword ? 
Ah no, not thou, but only our childishness, 
The pitifully childish heart of man 
That cannot learn and know beyond a little. 
77 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN 

" The priests and captains and the little kings 
Will tear each other at the throat and cry : 
4 Thus said he, lived he ; swear it or thou diest ! ' 
But these shall pass and perish in the dark 
While the lorn strays and outcasts of the world, 
The souls whose pain has seared their pride to dust 
And burned a way for love to enter in — 
These only know his meaning and shall live. 

" So is it as with one whose feet have trod 
The valley of the shadow, who has seen 
His dearest lowered into endless night. 
All music holds for him a deeper strain 
Of nobler meaning, and the flush of dawn, 
High wind at noonday, crumbling sunset gold, 
And the dear pathetic look of children's eyes — 
All beauty pierces closer to his heart. 

" Yea, thou thyself, pale youth upon the cross — 
The godlike strength of thee was rooted deep 
In human weakness. Even she who bore thee, 
Seeing the man too nearly, missed the God, 
Erring as fits the mother. Some will say 
In coming years, I feel it in my heart, 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN 

That thou didst face thy death a conscious God, 
Knowing almighty hands were stretched to snatch 
And lift thee from the greedy clutching grave. 
Falsely! Forgetting dark Gethsemane, — 
Not knowing, as I know, what doubt assailed 
Thy human heart until the latest breath. 
Ah, what a trumpery death, what mockery 
And mere theatric mimicry of pain, 
If thou didst surely know thou couldst not die ! 
Thou didst not know. And whether even now 
Thy straying ghost, like some great moth of night 
Blown seaward through the shadow, flies and drifts 
Along dim coasts and headlands of the dark, 
A homeless wanderer up and down the void, 
Or whether indeed thou art enthroned above 
In light and life, I know not. This I know — 
That in the moment of sheer certainty 
My soul will die. 

" No ! On thy spirit lay 
All the dark weight and mystery of pain 
And all our human doubt and flickering hope, 
Deathless despairs and treasuries of tears, 
Gropings of spirit blindfold by the flesh 
79 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN 

And grapplings with the fiend. Else were thy 

death 
Less like a God's than even mine may be. 

"Thou broken mother who canst see in him 
Only the quiet man, the needful child, 
And most of all the Babe of Bethlehem, 
Let it suffice thee. Thy reward is great. 
Who loveth God that never hath loved man ? 
Who knoweth man but cometh to know God ? 
Thou sacred, sorrowing mother, canst thou learn — 
Thou who hast gone so softly in God's sight — 
Of me, the scarlet woman of old days ? 
Come, let us talk together, thou and I. 
Apart, we see him darkly, through a glass ; 
Together, we shall surely see aright. 
Bring thou thine innocence, thy stainless soul, 
And I will bring deep lore of suffering, 
My dear-bought wisdom of defeat and pain. 
For out of these may come, believe it thou, 
Sanctities not like thine, but fit to bear 
The bitter storms and whirlwinds of this world. 
Aye, out of evil often springeth good, 
And sweetest honey from the lion's mouth. 
80 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN 

And that he knew. That very thing he meant 
When he withdrew me from the pits of shame. 
'T is I who see God shining through the man. 
I see the deity, the godlike strength 
In his supreme capacity for pain. 
Nor have I known the cruel love of men 
These many years to err when now I say 
This man loved not like men but like a God. 
Thou broken mother, weep not for the child, 
Mourn not the man. Acclaim the risen Christ ! " 

She turned and touched the other lovingly, 
Then stooped and peered into her darkened face. 
The mother slept, forspent and overborne 
By weariness and woe too great to bear. 

She gently smiled. " So it is best," she said. 

Tall and elate she stood, her shadowy hair 
Blown back along the darkness and her eyes 
That searched the distant spaces of the night 
Splendid and glowing with an inward joy. 
And over that dark hill of tragedy 
And triumph, victory and dull despair, 
81 



THE FIRST CHRISTIAN 

Over the sleeping Roman soldiery, 
Over the three stark crosses and the two 
Who loved Him most, the lily and the rose, 
Shone still and clear the great compassionate stars. 



THE END 



NOTE 

Some of these poems have been published before in The 
Sunset Magazine , The Smart Set, Munsef s Magazine, 
The Bellman, The International, The Overland Monthly, 
The Youth's Companion, Poetry — A Magazine of 
Verse, The Harvard Graduates'* Magazine, The Book 
News Monthly, Current Opinion, The Literary Digest, 
The Boston Transcript, and the Anthologies of Magazine 
Verse for 1 9 1 5 and 1916. I wish to thank the editors of 
those publications in which they originally appeared for 
permission to reprint. 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



